Mike Monroe: Lest we forget, Mavs enjoyed fast start, too

As hot a start as the Spurs enjoyed last season, it’s easy to forget the Mavericks nearly matched them, victory for victory, until Dirk Nowitzki suffered an ankle sprain in late December.

On Dec. 27, the day Nowitzki rolled his right ankle during a victory in Oklahoma City, the Spurs were 26-4, the best 30-game start in franchise history.

After hanging on to beat the Thunder that night, the Mavericks were 24-5.

Dallas lost seven of its next nine games, all without Nowitzki, and the first two after he returned, still limited.

It is hardly a stretch to suggest the Mavs would have challenged the Spurs for top seed in the West had Nowitzki remained healthy.

Would their playoff run to the 2011 NBA title have seemed so surprising had that occurred?

But the Mavericks won 57 games, not 60-something. Thus, the Trail Blazers were the hot pick to upset them in the first round. And when that didn’t happen, did anyone see a Mavericks sweep of the Lakers in the second round?

Few believed Dallas would handle the younger, more athletic Thunder in the Western finals, and on-the-record experts who picked the Mavericks over the Heat were as scarce as hen’s teeth.

Spurs fans cringed at the notion of seeing Mark Cuban hoisting the Lawrence O’Brien Trophy, but by the time Game 6 ended Sunday in Miami, basketball purists reveled in what had taken place: A triumph of team play over superlative talent.

Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle called his team’s performance a “colossal statement, not just about our team, but the game, in general … playing it a certain way, trusting the pass, playing collectively, believing in each other.”

Carlisle talked about collective will, collective grit, collective guts, about his team’s game being on the ground, rather than in the air.

If you closed your eyes, you could almost hear the voice of Gregg Popovich from the podium, half expecting the next line to be about corporate knowledge and the virtue of being older than dirt.

Certainly, Popovich understood all along how good the Mavericks were when at full strength, as they were on March 18. Then, the Spurs scored a convincing win at American Airlines Center that gave Popovich the sense his team had a legitimate shot at another title.

But that was three days before Tim Duncan sprained his left ankle and about a month before Manu Ginobili sprained his right elbow in the regular season’s final game.

And when No. 8 seed Memphis beat the Spurs in the first round?

Then, Popovich literally cursed his team’s fate.

“It’s just a crushing ‘poor me’ sort of feeling,” he later would say. “You say, ‘My God, how can this happen?’ Because no matter how you slice it, if Manu ain’t healthy, historically we go nowhere.”

Watching the Mavs’ playoff run tested his sanity, but when Carlisle talked about the way his team played, shouldn’t that have been reassuring to Popovich?

Popovich and general manager R.C. Buford promise to do what they can to get better, but they can’t expect quick help from the penultimate pick in the draft’s first round. Plus, they have no room under the salary cap to go after free agents who can make a difference.

Of course, nobody knows what the rules pertaining to free agents will be when, and if, the owners and players hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement. Cuban and his GM, Donnie Nelson, promise to do what they can to re-sign their three free agents, Caron Butler, Tyson Chandler and J.J. Barea.

Meanwhile, Dallas can get better with nothing more than a summer of injury rehab. Butler and Roddy Beaubois weren’t able to help in the playoff run. Both are capable of significant contributions when the Mavericks begin defense of the championship the Metroplex will celebrate, on Cuban’s dime, during a victory parade on Thursday.